It began with a muted series of thumps from a sharp knife or maybe clenched fists. The sounds were muffled but unmistakable, one body blow after another, ending with a squishy thud."No, no, no, no, no. No," came the high-pitched voice of a crew member or flight attendant being subdued. " . . . Please, please don't hurt me," the person said later. " . . . I don't want to die." The desperate plea, captured by the cockpit voice recorder of United Airlines Flight 93 on Sept. 11, 2001, was played to a transfixed jury yesterday at the death penalty trial of Zacarias Moussaoui.A foreign-accented voice, increasingly agitated, screamed: "Down. Down. Down!" as the whacking sound continued. Then there was silence. "That's it. Go back," a hijacker said calmly. "Everything is fine. I finished."And with that, Flight 93 from Newark banked left toward Washington. But the terrorists would not strike their target that day because they were beaten -- as the voice recorder made clear -- by the passengers, who fought back. The 32-minute tape recounts an epic struggle as passengers surged forward to retake the plane using whatever low-tech weapons they could find."Let's get them!" one passenger yelled as dishes crashed to the floor. "In the cockpit. If we don't we'll die," screamed another amid more thumping and crashing and breaking of glass.Yesterday, the myth of Flight 93 became real. The 33 passengers and seven crew members have been lionized in book and film for their struggle to retake the doomed jet, one of four planes hijacked during the deadliest terrorist strike in U.S. history. Until now, the recording that documented their courage had been played only for federal investigators and a limited number of relatives of those aboard.But in court, Americans were taken inside a hijacking drama that saw in a space of time shorter than the average Washington commute terrorists seize a cockpit by brutal force, repulse an initial attack by passengers and then crash a jetliner in a Pennsylvania field as their captives, throwing plates or anything else at their disposal, thwarted their plans.Much of the tape is unintelligible. There was loud static, and the voices, some speaking English and others Arabic, were often inaudible. It cannot be determined whether the passengers entered the cockpit, although it is certain they came close and forced the hijackers to abandon their attack on Washington.The recording made clear that a group of men and women, who knew the World Trade Center had been attacked, recognized that this was no conventional hijacking -- these terrorists were crashing planes into buildings -- and resolved to take control of their fate."There is absolutely no doubt that through their heroic actions still more carnage and catastrophe was prevented," said Richard Ben-Veniste, a member of the independent commission that investigated the Sept. 11 attacks. The commission concluded that the passengers of Flight 93 stopped an attack that was aimed at Washington, most likely the Capitol or White House.The hijackers, as shown on a computer simulation played on monitors throughout the courtroom, jerked the plane violently to the left and right during the struggle. They tried to cut off the oxygen as passengers banged on the cockpit door. In the end, as the passengers were either in the cockpit or moments from entering it, the hijackers turned the plane upside down -- and crashed it."Allah is the greatest!" one screamed nine times as the plane went down. The recording then went dead. The courtroom was silent.The trial seemed an afterthought yesterday amid the drama of the recording. Prosecutors rested their case for the execution of Moussaoui, the only person convicted in the United States in connection with the attacks on the trade center and the Pentagon. The defense will now begin its case, and Moussaoui is expected to take the stand again as early as today.In the trial's first phase, Moussaoui testified that he had planned to hijack a fifth plane and crash it into the White House on Sept. 11 with a crew that included shoe bomber Richard Reid. The jury found Moussaoui eligible for the death penalty and will decide whether he should be executed or spend his life in prison. Reid could testify before the jury gets the case.D. Hamilton Peterson of Bethesda, president of Families of Flight 93, said the public airing of the recording should put to rest any lingering questions about what happened aboard the Boeing 757. "The paramount issue was, Did the passengers and crew thwart the plane from its intended target? And that question has clearly been answered," said Peterson, whose father, Donald A. Peterson, and stepmother, Jean H. Peterson, died on the plane. "Whether or not they were actually into the cockpit or tearing the door off the hinges at the time it was scuttled is something history will have to answer."Prosecutors played the voice recorder tape as part of their effort to show the jury the extensive damage caused by Sept. 11 and the suffering and loss of the victims. More than 35 survivors and family members testified in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, including Lorne Lyles, whose wife, CeeCee, was a flight attendant on Flight 93. He brought several jurors to the brink of tears with his testimony yesterday about his wife's two calls from the plane.The first time the phone rang, Lyles, a Fort Myers, Fla., police officer who had worked the overnight shift, rolled over and went back to sleep. He did speak to his wife briefly when she called again. But only a week later did he hear the message she had left on his voice mail."Hi, baby," CeeCee Lyles said in the call, a tape of which was played in court yesterday. "Baby, you have to listen to me very carefully. I'm on a plane that's been hijacked. . . . I'm trying to be calm."Saying she knew that planes had crashed into the World Trade Center, Lyles tried to keep her composure, but her voice broke as she ended the call. "I hope to be able to see your face again, baby," she said. "I love you, baby."Lyles said he has been in and out of counseling for the past five years. "I'm just now being able to appreciate a full night's sleep," he testified. "They say closure, but there's never any closure. It takes a piece of you."Moussaoui looked bored, as he did when the cockpit voice recorder was played. Jurors leaned forward in their seats.A large screen showed the path of Flight 93 and instrument readings of speed and altitude as Ziad Jarrah, believed to be the hijacking team's pilot, started the recording by announcing: "Ladies and gentlemen: Here the captain, please sit down keep remaining sitting. We have a bomb on board. So sit."It was nearly 9:32 a.m., four minutes after investigators say the four hijackers started their attack. The plane had taken off from Newark Liberty International Airport, bound for San Francisco, at 8:42 a.m.The sounds of a struggle in the cockpit were immediately heard, but it was unclear whether the pleading voice was male or female. The Sept. 11 commission concluded that a flight attendant, most likely a woman, struggled with hijackers in the cockpit and was killed or otherwise silenced. Hijackers on the four planes were armed with small knives and box cutters.When the plane turned around and started heading south through Pennsylvania, there were several minutes of silence. At 9:43 a.m., it started descending rapidly, leveled off, then descended again. The first sign of a struggle came at 9:57 a.m., when a hijacker said: "Is there something? A fight?"Passengers, who had made cellphone calls and learned of the earlier trade center attack, then rushed the cockpit. "They want to get in there. Hold, hold from the inside," a hijacker said."Shall we finish it off?" one hijacker asked."No, not yet," responded another. "When they all come, we finish it off."Within seconds, there was bedlam -- the sounds of a violent, almost animalistic struggle. People yelled and objects crashed, which Sept. 11 commissioners say was probably the passengers hurling objects at the cockpit door or ramming it with a beverage cart."Down, down. Pull it down, pull it down," a hijacker said just before his colleague praised Allah and crashed the plane.In the background, a single voice could be heard screaming "No!"

How do you act as an accessory to murder while you're in jail? Seems like the FBI agents who stalled the efforts to search Moussaoui's hard drive and investigate him further before 9/11 were just as much "accessories" by that logic, not to mention a president who basically ignored a daily intelligence briefing entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US".

Also, the prosecutors appear to be taking Moussaoui's confession to being the "20th hijacker" completely at face value, despite statements from supposed high-level planners of 9/11 (who are in US custody) that Moussaoui was judged unsuitable for such an operation and was not involved. Are they just frustrated that all the actual hijackers are dead and see this as an opportunity to execute somebody for 9/11?

Moussaoui had fore knowedge of an attack on the U.S. by citizens from a hostile government. Which makes this an act of war. He offered no help to the FBI. So since he had information of this act and kept it to him self that makes him an accessory.

Myke Willis

Logged

For those who fight for it, freedom has a flavor the protected will never know

I will lose no sleep if Moussaoui is tossed out the airlock; if you run with rabid dogs you deserve their fate. Still, the current circus has counterproductive elements that I've been having trouble putting my finger on 'til I read this Bill Buckley editorial:

April 13, 2006, 1:23 p.m.Fitting the Crime

It pays not to try to understand the thinking behind the prosecution of Zacarias Moussaoui in Virginia. Thought renders unintelligible what the prosecution is up to in describing the luridities of 9/11 on Flight 93. The only explanation for what they are doing is that they are covert agents for the movie United 93, which is simultaneously going out from Hollywood.

Look. Nobody doubts that Moussaoui, a Frenchman of Moroccan heritage, was an agent of al-Qaeda. No one questions that he was in the United States for nefarious purposes. It happened ? miraculously ? that the FBI actually picked him up before 9/11, so that on the fated day, he was in jail, removed from mandibular contact with people actually tortured, burned, or propelled to suicide.

But the law holds him as an accessory. Mr. Moussaoui is far from furtive about his association with the bloody jihadists. It is persuasively argued that he might not in fact have served as the 20th man on one of the killer flights because he was too unreliable. Not as to motives ? he is entirely outspoken about wishing all Americans dead, except presumably those who are sympathizers and have not been detected by the FBI. It seems to have been a question of technical unreliability, so that boss-man Mohamed Atta evidently decided to have him stay away from that day's suicide planes, perhaps to study them on television, preparing himself for future active participation.

Again, bear in mind that Moussaoui has been found guilty in a formal judicial procedure of collusive involvement in an operation designed to kill U.S. civilians. That has been done. What goes on and on is the question of an appropriate penalty.

This beggars analysis. Why is it so important to the prosecution to go to such lengths to prove that Moussaoui deserves to be executed? Damage is done by this undertaking, because if the government fails, then the aroma of the trial will waft toward an ambiguity concerning the entire business. If Moussaoui "prevails" in the Virginia trial ? if execution is not ordered by the jury ? loose-minded analysts will arrive at the conclusion that he was finally not guilty of atrocious deeds, although he has admitted that he'd happily have been a member of the suicide team if he hadn't been detained by the FBI.

And then adding to the confusion, the public is slowly alerted to the generic question of capital punishment. The practice survives in many states, as also in the federal system. But a long, hideously detailed trial designed to do just one thing ? to raise the sentence from a lifetime in prison to capital punishment ? has the effect of elevating the one remedy to a distinctiveness which believers in capital punishment reject. If the public holds that execution is appropriate for a murderer, then the public should be spared a judicial flight plan that makes it all sound as though execution depended on the number of screams recorded from people killed by the hijackers. To put this trial in Virginia on a level with Nuremberg-style offensiveness risks mitigating the horror in which Moussaoui was involved.

What will happen is a rough plebiscite on capital punishment. If Moussaoui gets off, the abolitionists will argue that even such a man as would participate in such a crime as was committed on 9/11 should not be executed: because capital punishment is yesterday's extreme and uncivilized retaliatory measure. If they didn't execute Moussaoui, why should they execute me? One can hear this coming from the child murderer or serial killer.

When on Wednesday the judge admitted to be heard by the jury recorded sounds of airline pilots with throats slit, and sounds of desperate passengers fighting the terrorists to the death, what were the prosecutors up to? Nobody doubted that the events on Flight 93 had taken place. What the prosecutors clearly wanted was more blood chill. They were addressing the jurors and saying, a) you are dealing with a man already found guilty of committing the crime, b) the law is such that you have the acknowledged right to send that man to his death, now c) proceed to do so ? listen to the screams, and harden your determination against Moussaoui! Presumably if torture were permitted, the prosecution would have pleaded with the jury to let in a little of that to avenge the 40 lives lost on Flight 93.

This idea that Moussaoui's failure to spill what he knew about 9/11 to the FBI makes him an accessory seems pretty flimsy as a legal argument. Did he not have "the right to remain silent" once he was arrested?

The agent initially investigating Moussaoui pointed out the sketchiness of a Middle Eastern immigrant taking flying lessons (who didn't want to know how to take off land) to her superiors, and suggested that they search the guy's hard disk, and they basically ignored her. Who are these superiors and why aren't they being charged as accesories? Does this not bother any of the people now screaming for Moussaoui's blood?

It just seems like the prosecutors are letting their desire to execute some warm body over 9/11 get in the way of investigating some sketchy circumstances. A guy whom alleged high-level planners of 9/11 in US custody all say was not involved "confesses" to his participation in it, knowing he'll be executed, and the prosecutors aren't in the least bit curious as to why?

The agent initially investigating Moussaoui pointed out the sketchiness of a Middle Eastern immigrant taking flying lessons (who didn't want to know how to take off land) to her superiors, and suggested that they search the guy's hard disk, and they basically ignored her. Who are these superiors and why aren't they being charged as accesories? Does this not bother any of the people now screaming for Moussaoui's blood?

I kinda like this idea. Let's prosecute all the left of center types whose constant mewling has hamstrung our intelligence services. While were at it, let's start rounding up all the folks currently giving aid and comfort to Islamic Fascists. Best get busy building prisons, though.

Hindsight is a wondrous thing and though the United States is assumed to be some sort of technological behemoth able to intercept and analyze all, we are in fact subject to the same folly easily found examining just about any history book. Indeed, our habit of respecting the right of any half-baked ideologue to loudly lobby for simpleminded fixes to poorly understood issues golly darn well guarantees that folly will be introduced into the picture at every freaking turn.

Bottom line is that I'm not particularly surprised when folly rears its head--it's basically engineered into the system. I am awed, however, when someone identifies a fundamental threat, marshals the resources at hand to address it, then stays the course as every self serving politician and two-dimensional ideologue parades in front of the camera, rending their hair and screeching brain dead swill. I've got my share of issues with George Bush, but they are all trumped by his willingness to make hard choices in the face of an implacable enemy and stay the course.

This idea that Moussaoui's failure to spill what he knew about 9/11 to the FBI makes him an accessory seems pretty flimsy as a legal argument. Did he not have "the right to remain silent" once he was arrested?

This is an example of a complete misunderstanding of a legal concept.

The 5th amendment applies to custodial situations related to crimes for which you are being detained.

A prosecution of the same type was used against Michael Fortier in the OKC bombing.

It is a commonly used legal practice and is the foundation for numerous organized crime/gang-related prosecutions so the notion that the government is breaking out some new fangled toy to oppress Islam and placate the bloodthirsty is merely uninformed banter.

I am not an attorney: still while no one can support Moussaoui and note I do support capital punishment, I question the use of capital punishment in the matter of one being an ACCESSORY to murder before (or after) the fact. Off hand, I can't think of any examples of capital punishment being applied to an individual who was only an accessory to murder and was not present at the crime nor was he/she the instigator of the crime. In this instance, it does seem like the sole purpose of capital punishment is to "placate the bloodthirsty."

Off hand, I can't think of any examples of capital punishment being applied to an individual who was only an accessory to murder and was not present at the crime nor was he/she the instigator of the crime.

At the risk of revealing I'm a font of useless information, I think several of the Lincoln assassination conspiritors were hung, as well as sundry "anarchists" and organizers during various labor disputes in the early 20th century. In short it's not unprecedented, though in this instance I too question the utlilty of a Moussaoui death sentence.

Should we be surprised by the watershed debate following Zacarias Moussaoui's trial ending? Not really. The jury rendering of its recommendation is notunusual throughout the American legal war with Terrorism: For the five yearscourt struggle to try al Qaida members and other terrorists in the US legalstructure hasn't been working. After the classroom, America's court room istoo alien to the conflict. In short Moussaoui's case is not the only one todisplay a systemic crisis, all other cases did and will continue to do. Mytake on it, as an analyst of past and future terror wars, can be simplified:The terrorists are processed in the wrong courts and our debate on thislegal process is the wrong debate.

Let me be clear from the beginning: The issue I am raising is not about thedeath sentence or life in prison sentencing. That part should have been thelast stage in the debate: The one that seals the sentencing logic, not thediscussion that makes the debate. The Moussaoui trial is not about theprinciple of common criminal sentencing per se; it is about criminalizingTerrorism and its root ideologies. Here are few points that make myanalytical case:

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1. Zacarias Moussaoui's personal life is not a main factor in determiningthis particular mass crime, but one of the factors that could lower thepunishment, if incriminated. If he had a bad childhood or other negativefactors that affected his clarity of thinking, it should be considered aselements of clemency in the case of extreme sentencing, but not thefoundations of the case evaluation. For 9/11 and the war it was part of, wasnot a personal vendetta by M. Moussaoui against the US Government, but an alQaida genocidal war against the American people. This and other similarcases aren't a private affair between individuals -with some bad luck- andUS policies with consequences on national security. By his own admitting, MMoussaoui is a member, call him Jihadist or not, of a Terroristorganization. He shouldn't be tried in a US Court system designed to processcommon crimes instead of war crimes.

2. The victims of September 11, 2001 weren't selected by al Qaida, or evenby the perpetrators -including Moussaoui- personally. The men, women andchildren massacred throughout that day of infamy are the targets of a Terrorwar on America not vandalism on two towers in New York and a large buildingin Washington. Terrorism could have targeted other high rises and objectivesin different cities. The matter is not an individual vendetta betweenMoussaoui and the 3,000 persons Mohammed Atta and his Jihadists have killed.America was targeted as a nation for the purpose of genocide. As a massacredcollectivity, the victims of 9/11 belong to the nation not to theirrelatives. As individuals the victims are profoundly mourned by allAmericans and above all by their survivors. So who tried al Qaida on behalfof the nation?

3. Moussaoui is part of machinery larger than himself. In the 9/11 planningprocess, he is not a sole mechanism acting individually. He was executingorders by al Qaida and had the intention of carrying them out. He is anucleus that fell behind, in a wider cell that moved forward. His relationto the massacre is not pragmatic but mechanical. Hence the judicial processof finding out if he caused or not, the process of specific deaths of 9/11is not the issue: For he has openly admitted, and it was proven, that he waspart of the machinery put in place to perpetrate the massacre. That heslipped, failed or missed his opportunity is only one fact within a greaterreality: his commitment to achieve the mass-killing and his participation ina chain of event that led to it, even if he didn't walk through the lastpart of the horror.

4. More seriously is the current system ability to process the Terror cases:Per my own experience and open documents available, most of the players in acurrent court room setting are often unable to absorb the density of theconfrontation. The Jury, made of ordinary citizens, generally do notcomprehend the ideology of the Jihadists, hence can't make a strategicallyeducated decision, not on the sentencing process but on the essence of thewar crime at hand. US Judges are highly capable of controlling the procedurein their court rooms but haven't been enabled by the system to try a warwith Jihadi terror, if not specialized in Salafism, Khumeinism and othermovements' strategies, thinking process or even tactics. Prosecutors as wellare thrown into battles of ideas beyond their basic training. In theMoussaoui case, the jury asked for a dictionary, refused by the judge. Thequestion deserves an answer.

5. As for the defense lawyers, and I was one in the past, in the absence ofspecialized courts, they would twist history and geopolitics to achieve alegitimate goal: win their case. But instead of focusing on proving theinnocence of their clients and distancing him/her from the enemy, they tendto defend the ideology of their client, putting themselves in the wrong sideof the war their nation is victim of.

These above five facts and many more to develop in the future constitute thebasis of US failure in the courts processing of Jihadism-related Terrorcases. What is needed for future successes is the following:

a. That Congress identifies the ideologies of the Terrorists. In the heelsof many congressional hearings which already produced significant bipartisanconsensus, as well as in several speeches by the President since lastSeptember, the country not so far from identifying the missing link. Simplyspeaking: educate the jury, the judges, the prosecutors and the defenseattorneys, as to who is the enemy and what is its ideology. The rest shouldflow as American justice at its best, impartial and fair.

b. As in France and Spain, train "Counter-Terrorism Judges." From Paris toMadrid, these bright specialized men and women have all the tools they needto decide on procedures deemed appropriate to prosecute and ultimately trythe Terrorists at war with democracies. A similar training could provide theJustice Department with "Counter Terrorism Prosecutors." In a sum, allplayers in the court room must at some point be acquainted with what theywill have to reflect on, in Terrorism cases.

The debate on the Moussaoui case won't stop nationwide and beyond in view ofthe progressive realization by most Americans and many citizens of otherdemocracies that this case will be a benchmark in the history of thejudicial front with Terror. Therefore, it is important to avoid Byzantinedebates and reserve the energies to the center of the crisis not itsperipheries. Consider for example how the "martyrdom" affair plays in theSalafist chat rooms: "These Kuffars (infidels) are easy to dupe," said acadre in the al-Ansar Paltalk room few months ago. "All you have to do is toplay their akhlaq(ethics) or lead them to believe that we are busat'a(simple minded).That's what Zacarias was able to achieve, alone against the whole Americanpolitical culture: First, he dramatized his personal life to the extreme,leading some to believe that his past was the root cause for his violentchoices. While in fact the ideology that recruited him was responsible forthe Jihad he chose to practice. Second, he dramatized his stance to thelimits by threatening to throw himself into the death row and force the juryto retreat into psychological guilt. Indeed, one al Qaida man, initialmember of the 9/11 Ghazwa (terror-raid) single handedly outmaneuvered thejury, the court and potentially the public. By transforming the judicialchallenge into a debate about "death penalty" and all the Americanpsychological consequences that follows, Zacharias Moussaoui deflected theattention from the real mammoth in the courtroom: The ideology of SalafiJihadism. Instead of trying the "criminal ideology" he acted on behalf,America fell into the trap of struggling with itself as a merciful orrevengeful society.

Moussaoui feels he won all the way, even if he got life in prison. He playedthe martyrdom card till his audience nauseated. He then played his personallife card till he obtained the mitigating factor. He played it tight, close,and smartly. His colleagues brought down towers five years ago, butMoussaoui administered another type of strikes against his foes: Defeatingthem through their own system.

What the court room in Virginia missed in its trial of the decade was thefactory that produced Moussaoui's mind. A life sentence is not necessarily abad choice in democracies, or the wrong message to send when needed, if thenation the jury came from is enabled to cast a death sentence on theideologies of hatred.

Dr Walid Phares is a Senior Fellow with the Foundation for the Defense ofDemocracies in Washington and a Professor of Comparative Politics. He is theauthor of Future Jihad. Dr Phares practiced as a defense lawyer in the 1980sand served as a Jihadism Expert in Terrorism cases in the US and Europeafter 2001.

Ok, beyond the very simple answers there still remains the question, "why would he fight the death penalty at all?" Would he still not be a Martyr if he were killed by the United States? He (I refuse to say his name 1 more time) could have fired his defenders, represented himself, and stood proudly and defiantly behind his and his accompices actions. No excuses about his childhood... no excuses at all. This creature was serving his version of his "God" in his actions - now he blames his Dad?

I agree that this is being tried in the wrong courts. But this worm's actions truly shows what he thinks of his offered paradise.

Forgive me on any religious insults some may be taking. I am not trying to make this any more of a religious issue than it is. But, I am finding it harder and harder to accept more and more actions like this labeled as terror actions when the suspects seem to be of a particular religion. What happened to Hate crimes? Or does that only apply when a middle class white christian male commits a crime on a person who neither looks like nor believes in what the middle class white christian guy believes. (just and example) That being said, I want to state that any Fundamentalist Christian groups such as the KKK or others fall into this catagory in my eyes as well.

These are confusing times and I wish a man could be a man to one another without all the religion, race, creed, etc. After you take all of that away, we would still be men. I am sad and confused about many things including my own feelings. I don't ever want to fear or hate or even dislike a person because of a book he reads, or clothes he wears or whatever, but as of late I find myself becoming a person I don't particularly care for.